As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to these users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may vary with respect to the type of information handled; the methods for handling the information; the methods for processing, storing or communicating the information; the amount of information processed, stored, or communicated; and the speed and efficiency with which the information is processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include or comprise a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
A common drawback of information handling systems is the amount of time it takes for them to boot or start up. This delay is undesirable for the user. For instance, such delays are important when using an Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) which is an embedded processor on the server planar available from Dell, Inc., that provides out-of-band management facilities. Out-of-band management involves the use of a dedicated management channel for device maintenance and allows a system administrator to monitor and manage servers and other network equipment by remote control regardless of whether the machine is powered on. Specifically, such remotely controlled interface cards give an administrator the ability to remotely configure an information handling system.
When using a remotely controlled interface card such as the iDRAC, early responses are required by the system for which waiting on the embedded Operating System to start wastes time and causes noticeable penalties to a user. For example, responses to early queries from Basic Input/Output System (“BIOS”) over the Keyboard Controller Style (“KCS”) bus or other interface such as shared memory or internal network interface could potentially delay the boot-up of the main processor. Additionally, in current systems, the fans that are used for thermal regulation will unnecessarily spin at full speed at first spin, causing noise and suspicious behavior to an observer. Moreover, in a software licensing model, the devices to be licensed such as the Network Interface Card (“NIC”) and Redundant Array of Independent Disks (“RAID”) hardware must immediately know their licensed state in order to proceed, and iDRAC is the keeper of this data. Therefore, start up delays have many adverse effects on the information handling system.